Crab NebulaThe Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, expanding debris from the death explosion of a massive star. This intriguing false-color image combines data from space-based observatories, Chandra, Hubble, and Spitzer, to explore the debris cloud in x-rays (blue-purple), optical (green), and infrared (red) light.
........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/31/2006 6:43:44 PM)
Halloween For NebulaThe dark nebula SH2-136 appears to be celebrating Halloween all of the time. The complex process of star formation create dust clouds of a number of shapes and sizes -- it is human perception that might identify a ghoulish creature, on the right of the above image, chasing humans.
Halloween's modern celebration retains historic roots in dressing to scare away the spirits of the dead. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/31/2006 6:38:23 PM)
Cracking The Stellar EvolutionUsing 3D models run on some of the fastest computers in the world, Laboratory physicists have created a mathematical code that cracks a mystery surrounding stellar evolution.
For years, physicists have theorized that low-mass stars (about one to two times the size of our sun) produce great amounts of helium 3 (³He). When they exhaust the hydrogen in their cores to become red giants, most of their makeup is ejected, substantially enriching........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/27/2006 4:32:31 AM)
The Space Tourism Industry Can Really Make MoneySo far, only one craft has flown in space, sending test pilots to the final frontier at an expense of $25 million-plus to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize. Market right now doesn't show the prospects that were expected by the investors in the space tourism industry.
But this doesn't mean that people in the real world don't have any respect for this industry. Space Tourism is not aimed at "space geeks" only. This seems the way it is because........Go to the Astronomy-news (Added on 10/25/2006 5:03:27 AM)
Day And Night On The Exotic WorldNASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has made the first measurements of the day and night temperatures of a planet outside our solar system. The infrared observatory revealed that the Jupiter-like gas giant planet circling very close to its sun is always as hot as fire on one side, and potentially as cold as ice on the other.
"This planet has a giant hot spot in the hemisphere that faces the star," said Dr. Joe Harrington of the University of........Go to the Astronomy-facts (Added on 10/16/2006 9:35:43 PM)
Complex Meteorology At VenusIn its relentless probing of Venus's atmosphere, ESA's Venus Express keeps revealing new details of the Venusian cloud system. Meteorology at Venus is a complex matter, scientists say.
New night-side infrared images gathered by the Ultraviolet, Visible and Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIRTIS) in July 2006, clearly show new details of a complex cloud system.
The first (false colour) view - the composite of three infrared images........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/15/2006 8:41:36 PM)
Secrets Of Black Hole JetsNASA and Italian researchers using Swift have for the first time determined what the particle jets streaming from black holes are made of.
Black hole particle jets are usually seen in quasars and other celestial objects, shooting off at nearly light speed. As per the Swift team, these jets appear to be made of protons and electrons, solving a mystery as old as the discovery of jets themselves in the 1970s. The jets observed by Swift contain........Go to the Astronomy-facts (Added on 10/12/2006 8:00:08 PM)
Jupiter's Little Red Spot Growing StrongerThe highest wind speeds in Jupiter's Little Red Spot have increased and are now equal to those in its older and larger sibling, the Great Red Spot, as per observations with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
The Little Red Spot's winds, now raging up to approximately 400 miles per hour, signal that the storm is growing stronger, as per the NASA-led team that made the Hubble observations. The increased intensity of the storm probably caused it to........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/12/2006 7:48:18 PM)
Cassini Finds More RingsImages taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, looking in the direction of the Sun, have provided researchers fresh insights into the dynamic nature of the rings and, in particular, the creation of new rings made from tiny particles released from larger bodies.
Cassini findings being presented this week at the Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting of the American Astronomical Society held in Pasadena, Calif. include several new faint ring........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/12/2006 4:59:05 AM)
Planets Form From Disks Around StarsThe NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with ground-based observatories, has at last confirmed what philosopher Emmanuel Kant and researchers have long predicted: that planets form from debris disks around stars.
More than 200 years ago, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant first proposed that planets are born from disks of dust and gas that swirl around their home stars. Though astronomers have detected more than 200 extrasolar........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/9/2006 9:18:29 PM)
Detailed view of Victoria CraterWith stunningly powerful vision, the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken a remarkable picture that shows the exploration rover Opportunity poised on the rim of Victoria crater on Mars.
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera detailed the entire 800-meter (roughly half-mile) Victoria crater and the rover -- down to its rover tracks and shadows -- in a single high-resolution image taken........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/8/2006 6:42:44 PM)
Black Hole Musical: Epic But Off-KeyA gigantic sonic boom generated by a supermassive black hole has been found with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, along with evidence for a cacophony of deep sound.
This discovery was made by using data from the longest X-ray observation ever of M87, a nearby giant elliptical galaxy. M87 is centrally located in the Virgo cluster of galaxies and is known to harbor one of the Universe's most massive black holes.
Researchers detected loops........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/6/2006 4:53:02 AM)
Watch How Planets FormWith the VISIR instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have mapped the disc around a star more massive than the Sun. The very extended and flared disc most likely contains enough gas and dust to spawn planets. It appears as a precursor of debris discs such as the one around Vega-like stars and thus provides the rare opportunity to witness the conditions prevailing previous to or during planet formation.
"Planets form in........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/28/2006 10:16:31 PM)
Launching Of Solar-BSolar-B is an international mission to study our nearest star, the sun. To accomplish this, the Solar-B mission includes a suite of three science instruments -- the Solar Optical Telescope, X-ray Telescope and Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer.
Together, these instruments will study the generation, transport, and dissipation of magnetic energy from the photosphere to the corona and will record how energy stored in the sun's magnetic........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/20/2006 7:58:02 PM)
New lunar meteorite found in AntarcticaEventhough last year's inclement weather resulted in fewer Antarctic meteorite recoveries than usual, researchers have recently discovered that one of the specimens is a rare breed -- a type of lunar meteorite seen only once before.
The new specimen was found by a field party from the U.S. Antarctic Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET) headquartered at Case Western Reserve University. The meteorite was discovered on Dec. 11, 2005, on an........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/14/2006 8:23:26 PM)
Picture of AtlantisLook! Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human just a millennium ago. The launch of a rocket bound for space is an event that inspires awe and challenges description.
Pictured above, the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off to visit the International Space Station during the morning of 2006 September 9. From a........Go to the Astronomy-news (Added on 9/14/2006 6:54:21 PM)
most energetic explosions in the solar systemSolar flares are tremendous explosions on the surface of our Sun, releasing as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT in the form of radiation, high energy particles and magnetic fields. The Suns magnetic fields are known to be an extremely important factor in producing the energy for flaring and when these magnetic fields lines clash together, dragging hot gas with them, an enormous maelstrom of energy is released. This boiling cauldron of........Go to the Astronomy-news (Added on 9/14/2006 5:07:42 AM)
Solar FlaresSolar flares are tremendous explosions on the surface of our Sun, releasing as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT in the form of radiation, high energy particles and magnetic fields. The Sun's magnetic fields are known to be an extremely important factor in producing the energy for flaring and when these magnetic fields lines clash together, dragging hot gas with them, an enormous maelstrom of energy is released. This boiling cauldron of........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/11/2006 10:17:09 PM)
Planet or failed star?Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have photographed one of the smallest objects ever seen around a normal star beyond our Sun. Weighing in at 12 times the mass of Jupiter, the object is small enough to be a planet. The riddle is that it is also large enough to be a brown dwarf, a failed star.
The Hubble observation of the diminutive companion to the low-mass red dwarf star CHRX 73 is a dramatic reminder that astronomers........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/9/2006 7:48:06 AM)
Birth And Death Of StarsThe Japan Aerospace Exploration Agencys (JAXA) AKARI Infrared Space Telescope has returned spectacular new images showing the earliest stages of star formation and the final stages of the death of stars in our Galaxy. The results released recently (August 30th) depict scenes showing infrared pictures of the birth and death of stars. The quality of this data has delighted the Japanese, UK and Dutch Team members and shown the power of this new........Go to the Astronomy-news (Added on 9/5/2006 9:20:36 PM)
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Esperanza FireWaves of gray-brown smoke washed over the mountains southeast of Los Angeles and out over the Pacific on Oct. 26, 2006, on the same day on which four firefighters were killed fighting the blaze. West of Palm Springs, Calif., the Esperanza Fire had ballooned under the influence of Santa Ana winds to encompass more than 19,000 acres as of the morning of Oct. 27, as per the daily report from the National Interagency Fire Center. Racing through........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/31/2006 6:48:13 PM)
Latest views of the V838Hubble has returned to the intriguing V838 Monocerotis a number of times since its initial outburst in 2002 to follow the evolution of its light echo. Two new images provide the most astonishing views of V838 to date.
The unusual variable star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) continues to puzzle astronomers. This previously inconspicuous star underwent an outburst early in 2002, during which it temporarily increased in brightness to become........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/27/2006 5:03:50 AM)
200-million-year-old Baby GalaxiesAstronomers have taken amazing pictures of two of the most distant galaxies ever seen. The ultradeep images, taken at infrared wavelengths, confirm for the first time that these celestial cherubs are real. The researchers* are now able to weigh galaxies and determine their age at earlier times than ever before, providing important clues about the evolutionary origins of galaxies like our Milky Way. The work appears in the October 1 issue of........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/26/2006 5:04:18 AM)
Direct Proof Of Stellar Sorting In A Globular ClusterA seven year study with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with the best observational evidence yet that globular clusters sort out stars as per their mass, governed by a gravitational billiard ball game between stars. Heavier stars slow down and sink to the cluster's core, while lighter stars pick up speed and move across the cluster to its periphery. This process, called "mass segregation", has long been suspected........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/24/2006 8:30:30 PM)
New Details of Mars, Young and OldDuring its first week of observations from low orbit, NASA's newest Mars spacecraft is already revealing new clues about both recent and ancient environments on the red planet.
Researchers hope the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will answer questions about the history and distribution of Mars' water by combining data from the orbiter's high-resolution camera, imaging spectrometer, context camera, ground-penetrating radar, atmospheric sounder,........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/16/2006 9:30:11 PM)
Mug Shots Of SupernovasResearchers using NASA's Swift satellite have observed two dozen recent star explosions, called supernovae, quickly after the event and have discovered never-before-seen properties, some of which run counter to prevailing theories.
In one observation, they have confirmed the origin of Type Ia supernovae, an important class of explosions used to measure distances and dark energy. In other observations they have found new mechanisms to produce........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/12/2006 8:24:50 PM)
Closer to the Edge of a Black HoleNASA researchers and their international partners using the new Japanese Suzaku satellite have collected a startling new set of black hole observations, revealing details of twisted space and warped time never before seen with such precision.
The observations include clocking the speed of a black hole's spin rate and measuring the angle at which matter pours into the void, as well as evidence for a wall of X-ray light pulled back and........Go to the Astronomy-news (Added on 10/12/2006 8:15:34 PM)
Evidence Of A Modern-day CollisionResearchers on NASA's Cassini mission have spied a new, continuously changing feature that provides circumstantial evidence that a comet or asteroid recently collided with Saturn's innermost ring, the faint D ring.
Imaging researchers see a structure in the outer part of the D-ring that looks like a series of bright ringlets with a regularly spaced interval of about 30 kilometers (19 miles). An observation made by NASA's Hubble Space........Go to the Astronomy-news (Added on 10/12/2006 5:04:31 AM)
Gems Of KnowledgeBy processing vast amounts of data, computers helped astronomers make new discoveries about the universe. Now they're helping banks and other companies learn more about their customers.
As telescopes scan the heavens they generate huge amounts of data. Take the Hubble Space Telescope, for example. It produces about 1,000 gigabytes of data each year - enough to fill more than 200 million pages. Newer telescopes generate even more.
So what........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/10/2006 10:05:14 PM)
Nobelists' Work Supports Big-bang TheoryMIT alumnus George F. Smoot has been awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics, together with John C. Mather, for work that looks back into the infancy of the universe and attempts to gain some understanding of the origin of galaxies and stars.
The work, based on measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation made with NASA's COBE satellite, provides increased support for the big-bang theory of the origin of the universe. The COBE........Go to the Astronomy-facts (Added on 10/10/2006 9:25:13 PM)
Back From Deep HibernationOn 15 September, flight controllers at ESA's Space Operations Centre watched tensely as 'Rumba', No. 1 in the four-spacecraft Cluster fleet, was switched into a low-power, deep hibernation mode. The aim was to survive a challenging eclipse.
Each year, in autumn, the Cluster fleet must pass several times through the Earth's shadow with respect to the Sun. During these eclipses, which last about three hours, sunlight is blocked by the Earth........Go to the Astronomy-news (Added on 10/8/2006 6:55:43 PM)
Sun Was Born In Star ClusterThe death of a massive nearby star billions of years ago offers evidence the sun was born in a star cluster, say astronomers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rather than being an only child, the sun could have hundreds or thousands of celestial siblings, now dispersed across the heavens.
In a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomy professors Leslie W. Looney and Brian D. Fields, and........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/4/2006 10:29:50 PM)
Stellar Birth Control In The Early UniverseAn international team of astronomers based at Yale and Leiden University in The Netherlands observed that "old stars" dominated a number of large galaxies in the early universe, raising the new question of why these galaxies progressed into "adulthood" so early in the life of the universe.
Every year only a handful of new stars are born out of the gas that fills the space between the stars in galaxies like the Milky Way. To account for the........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 10/1/2006 7:10:09 PM)
Intelligent Aircraft FlyingThe U.S. military depends on small, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to perform such tasks as serving as "eyes in the sky" for battalion commanders planning maneuvers. While some of these UAVs can be easily carried in a backpack and launched by hand, they typically require a team of trained operators on the ground, and they perform only short-term tasks individually rather than sustained missions in coordinated groups.
MIT researchers, in........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/26/2006 9:23:16 PM)
Eclipsed Moon Rising Over EnglandLast Thursday, part of our Moon turned dark. The cause, this time, was not a partial lunar phase -- the Moon was full -- but rather that part of the Moon went into Earth's shadow. The resulting partial lunar eclipse was visible from the eastern Atlantic Ocean through Europe, Africa, and Asia and into the western Pacific Ocean. The darkest part of the lunar eclipse, when part of the Moon was completely shielded from sunlight, lasted about 90........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/14/2006 6:57:24 PM)
Spiral Galaxy in TriangulumThe small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way.
About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself believed to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/14/2006 6:43:39 PM)
Einstein's Relativity Survives Gruelling Pulsar TestAn international research team led by Prof. Michael Kramer of the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory, UK, has used three years of observations of the "double pulsar", a unique pair of natural stellar clocks which they discovered in 2003, to prove that Einstein's theory of general relativity - the theory of gravity that displaced Newton's - is correct to within a staggering 0.05%. Their results are published on........Go to the Astronomy-facts (Added on 9/14/2006 4:37:37 AM)
Latest AstrophotosAmazing pictures of the moon captured with EOS-20D digital camera.
Stacked from 15 exposures of 1/5 second at ISO 100 This image is a mosaic of 15 separate and slightly overlapping 8.2 megapixel images from my Canon EOS-20D (unmodified), taken in Raw mode and converted and stitched together in Photoshop CS2. The exposures were each 1/5 second at ISO 100.
I mounted my 20D to my Meade LX200 GPS UHTC 10" Schmidt-Cassegrain........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/10/2006 6:40:50 AM)
Collaboration On Moon DataAmid a bevy of international space exploration missions to the Moon, the Washington University Department of Earth and Planetary Science in Arts & Sciences and ShanDong University at WeiHai (SDU at WH) in Mainland China have agreed to cooperate on scientific research and joint training of students in the two institutions.
The agreement comes less than a year away from the planned launch of Chang'E-1, the Chinese lunar probe project, in........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/9/2006 9:59:11 AM)
Supernova In Real-timeFor the first time a star has been observed in real-time as it goes supernova a mind bogglingly powerful explosion as the star ends its life, the resulting cosmic eruption briefly outshining an entire galaxy. UK scientists, in collaboration with international colleagues, used NASA's Swift satellite and a combination of orbiting and ground-based observatories to catch a supernova in the act of exploding. The results, including an associated and........Go to the Astronomy-blog (Added on 9/5/2006 9:47:44 PM)
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